China plans food regulation shake-up

China is set to announce a significant government restructure within days, including the creation of a national food regulation agency to address safety concerns and the down-sizing of the country’s powerful family planning commission.

The corruption-riddled Railways Ministry is also likely to be dismantled with some of its operations spun off into a separate state-owned company and the rest merged with the Ministry of Transportation.

A new food safety body, similar to the US Food and Drug Administration, will be set up in a bid to better regulate the quality and safety of locally made products. The shake-up is being driven by Li Keqiang, who will be officially appointed China’s next premier at the conclusion of the NPC meeting and now heads the food safety commission.

There is also increasing speculation the government will break up the National Population and Family Planning Commission, so that the section responsible for implementing the One Child Policy is incorporated into the Health Ministry. This would be a significant move because it signals the government is attaching less priority to family planning and suggests a continued relaxation of the controversial One Child Policy, which has been in place since 1980. Already couples who are both from one-child families can opt to have two children.

The proposal for a new food safety body would involve merging regulation and law enforcement into one agency, but there is a last-minute debate among policymakers about whether to focus only on food or include pharmaceuticals, according to a report in the South China Morning Post.

Up to 13 government agencies are now in charge of regulating the country’s vast food and pharmaceuticals sectors. Confidence in Chinese-made products has plummeted in recent years after a series of scandals.

In 2008 six children died after drinking infant formula which had been tainted with melamine. The demand for imported formula is now so great that Hong Kong has introduced heavy fines and a potential two-year jail sentence for people taking more than two cans at a time out of the territory.